Sinhalisation is a term derived from Sinhala that has a number of meanings in

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

. It mainly refers to the assimilation into Sinhalese culture in which the members of another ethno-cultural group are steadily integrated or absorbed into established Sinhalese culture.

Sociological assimilation

In a sociological context it could refer to the assimilation of ethno-cultural minorities in Sri Lanka such as the

Sri Lankan Tamils Sri Lankan Tamils ( or ), also known as Ceylon Tamils or Eelam Tamils, are Tamils native to the South Asian island state of Sri Lanka. Today, they constitute a majority in the Northern Province, Sri Lanka, Northern Province, form the pluralit ...

, Chetties, and indigenous Veddas into the majority Sinhalese identity, including some Sinhala Buddhists of the interior such as the Demalagattara and some Catholics such as the Bharatha of the coastal areas of the island nation. Buddhism Betrayed?: Religion, Politics, and Violence in Sri Lanka By Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah, p. 152-3
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/ref> Many noted elite families that had contributed to Sinhala nationalism had been of Tamil origin, themselves Sinhalised in the recent past.
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Politics and government

In a political context it could refer to the Sinhala language-favouring policies of the post colonial governments of Sri Lanka that are considered to be major causes of the Sri Lankan Civil War. It is termed as culturo-ideological

exclusivism Exclusivism is the practice of being :wikt:exclusive, exclusive, a mentality characterized by the disregard for opinions and ideas which are different from one's own, or the practice of organizing entities into groups by excluding those entities wh ...

by some when one's cultural values and norms are absolutised in such a manner that a particular way of life is enshrined as superior to all others and must therefore be adopted by others (e.g. the

Tamil Tamil may refer to: People, culture and language * Tamils, an ethno-linguistic group native to India, Sri Lanka, and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka ** Myanmar or Burmese Tamils, Tamil people of Ind ...

reaction to the perceived "Sinhalisation" processes of the Sri Lankan state) It was said to be a cause of the abortive coup by disgruntled Catholic army officers in

1962 The year saw the Cuban Missile Crisis, which is often considered the closest the world came to a Nuclear warfare, nuclear confrontation during the Cold War. Events January * January 1 – Samoa, Western Samoa becomes independent from Ne ...

. Currently, some observers note that Sri Lankan political parties such as JHU and JVP adhere to a policy of political Sinhalisation.

Government-sponsored settlement

Media uses the word "Sinhalisation" to refer to the process by which the Sri Lankan government funded and sponsored the settlement of Sinhala people in areas traditionally inhabited by Tamils in the north and east of Sri Lanka in order to make the Tamils the minority in the region. Some reports claims that the Sinhalese and Sinhala military families are settled in houses built by money from the Indian government that were intended to improve the welfare of the Tamil people.

Notes

The ancestor of the Bandaranayke family was a 17th-century Tamil immigrant Pandaram; a non-Brahmin priest known as Neelaperumal Kalukapuge. The term 'Kalu' in Tamil is different in meaning to the Sinhalese meaning. A similar process was witnessed in the Kandyan kingdom, where (for example) the ancestor of Pilimatalavuva Maha Adikaram and related families trace or claim ancestry from a

Pandyan The Pandya dynasty (), also referred to as the Pandyas of Madurai, was an ancient Tamil dynasty of South India, and among the four great kingdoms of Tamilakam, the other three being the Pallavas, the Cholas and the Cheras. Existing sinc ...

emperor of the late 17th century,Pilimatalavuva Family
by Ananda Pilimatalavuva, 05-08-2019 though the Pandyan kingdom had ceased to exist by the 15th century and the region was ruled by the Madurai Sultanate, the

Vijayanagara Empire The Vijayanagara Empire, also known as the Karnata Kingdom, was a late medieval Hinduism, Hindu empire that ruled much of southern India. It was established in 1336 by the brothers Harihara I and Bukka Raya I of the Sangama dynasty, belongi ...

, and the Nayak dynasties.

References

External links